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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
The State of Lower Saxony and the VolkswagenFoundation have granted researchers of the University Medical Center Göttingen, the Leibniz University Hannover and the Clusters of Excellence Multiscale Bioimaging and Hearing4all funding by the zukunft.niedersachsen program. Their project on the development of optical cochlear implants for the restoration of hearing in humans received funding of around 0.7 million euros as part of the „Durchbrüche“ line of funding.
(mbexc/umg) Electrical cochlear implants (CIs) are used by more than one million people worldwide. The inner ear implants enable people to understand speech in quiet environments. However, users have difficulties in understanding speech in background noise, interpreting the emotional tone of speech, or enjoying melodies in music. Therefore, there is a great clinical need to improve hearing with CI. Re-search is focused on "hearing with light" with the optical CI. This promises users to much better understand speech in noisy environments and moreover to recognize melodies in speech.
The State of Lower Saxony supports a collaborative approach of researchers and companies in Lower Saxony, for further advancing the development of the optical cochlear implant. “Hearing research rightly enjoys a prominent role in Lower Saxony’s research foci, not only due to its high translational potential in resolving hearing loss, but also due to its well documented and internationally visible scientific excellence in competitive calls on the European and federal levels”, stresses Falko Mohrs, Lower Saxon Minister für Science and Culture. “I am therefore delighted to announce this additional funding in order to further speed up the pathway to clinical research and application of this remarkable research.”
This collaboration of University Medical Center Göttingen (UMG), Leibniz University Hannover (LUH), the Clusters of Excellence Multiscale Bioimaging „Multiscale Bioimaging: From Molecular Machines to Networks of Excitabel Cells“ (MBExC) and Hearing4all as well as the Göttingen Start-Up OptoGenTech GmbH and the CI manufacturer Advanced Bionics GmbH now focusses on a key component of the optical CI: the aim is to develop a highly-integrated and low-power chip that operates the laser diodes and will be included into the electronics of the optical CI. The project is intended to pave the way for the first clinical trial of the optical CI. The participation of the two companies is of great importance for the success of the project and its subsequent commercial exploitation. The reserach approach receives funding of approximately 0.7 million euros as part of the call for proposals ”Durchbrüche: Unterstützung von Kooperationsprojekten zwischen Wissenschaft und Wirtschaft“ from funds of zukunft.niedersachsen (formerly: Niedersächsisches Vorab).
The research project is led by Prof. Dr. Tobias Moser, Director of the Institute for Auditory Neuroscience at UMG and spokesperson of the Göttingen Cluster of Excellence MBExC, as well as by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Blume, Institute of Microelectronic Systems at LUH and board member of the Cluster of Excellence Hearing4all at the Hannover site. Another participating scientist of the Leibniz University is Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernhard Wicht, Institute of Microelectronic Systems, subject area mixed-signal circuits. The cooperative project builds on extensive preliminary work by the project partners in Lower Saxony, existing CI components and an already established collaboration. Prof. Moser and his team have already received worldwide attention for their pioneering work on the development of the optical CI, which is intended to enable "hearing with light" by combining a conventional, electrical CI with modern optogenetics.
The optical cochlear implant is on its way to clinical trials
Since light can be limited spatially much better than electrical stimuli, optical stimulation of the auditory nerve promises to overcome the limitations of current electrical CIs. By combining an optical CI with gene therapy, a fundamental improvement in frequency resolution is achieved. Gene therapy is used to introduce a light-activated ion channel ("molecular light switch") into spiral ganglion neurons of the cochlea and make them sensitive to light. Following the already successful application in animal models, the technology now must be further developed for its application in humans.
However, there is still a considerable need for research before the planned start of the first clinical trial in 2027. The approved funding will enable the development and integration of a low-power chip that is needed to operate the laser diodes of the optical CI. The laser diodes are activated according to the audio frequency and the light from the diodes is guided via waveguides to the location in the cochlea corresponding to the audio frequency. The light emitted there in turn stimulates the light-sensitive auditory nerve cells.
Background information: Hearing loss
Hearing loss is the most common sensory disability in humans: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 466 million people (including 34 million children) worldwide suffer from hearing loss requiring treatment. The most common form of hearing loss is caused by defective or dead auditory sensory cells. To date, it has not been possible to repair or restore these sensory cells. Clinical care is therefore based on hearing aids for mild to moderate hearing loss and cochlear implants (CI) for severe hearing loss and deafness.
University Medical Center Göttingen, Georg-August-Universität
Institute for Auditory Neuroscience
Prof. Dr. Tobias Moser
Robert-Koch-Str. 40, D-37075 Göttingen
Phone 0551 / 39-63071; tmoser@gwdg.de
Leibniz University Hannover
Institute of Microelectronic Systems (IMS)
Subject Area Architecture and Systems
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Holger Blume
Appelstr. 4, 30167 Hannover
Phone 0511 / 762-19640; blume@ims.uni-hannover.de
Cluster of Excellence Multiscale Bioimaging (MBExC)
Dr. Heike Conrad (Science communication)
Phone: 0551-39-61305; heike.conrad@med.uni-goettingen.de
http://www.auditory-neuroscience.uni-goettingen.de
https://mbexc.de/
https://hearing4all.de/en/
https://www.uni-hannover.de/en/
https://www.ims.uni-hannover.de
Design study: Optogenetic cochlear implantat as a combination of medical device and gene therapy pro ...
umg/Keppeler/Moser
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